


Progress

by bobbiewickham



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:00:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras and Combeferre try to clean Combeferre's apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Progress

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Tumblr for a prompt from laissezferre.

“This will fall,” said Enjolras, regarding the teetering tower of books and old newspapers that stood two feet taller than him.

“I don’t think so.” Combeferre was well versed in how many items could be set on top of each other before falling. He had kept twenty thick tomes stacked on top of a table with the surface area of a candlestick for three whole months with no problems at all.

Of course, at the end of three months the books did fall, and knocked over another table piled with books on their way down, which in turn had knocked into Mme Blondeau, the skeleton Combeferre kept for anatomical study (christened by Bossuet, naturally, but the name had stuck). That was why Enjolras, upon arriving at Combeferre’s apartment today at his usual time, had beheld a room that was not as neat as it could have been, and had offered to help straighten it up.

The offer was appreciated, though Combeferre still felt Enjolras had exaggerated when he compared the sight of the room to one of Prouvaire’s apocalyptic poems. There was no _spilled blood_ in the room, after all. Combeferre was fairly certain of this. 

Enjolras, shaking his head, removed the top half of the stack of books and set it on the floor to make a new stack.

“Have it your way,” Combeferre said. “In fact, it’s a good idea. This way I can put my equipment on top here—it wouldn’t have been safe to put it on top of the old stack, as it was much too high.” He set a tray on top of the new stack, and then several large bottles filled with tinctures on top of the tray, and then a few smaller empty vials on top of the bottles. Then, with great care, he placed a small dish of needles on top of the vials, and stepped back slowly, without breathing too hard.

The pile, now a few inches taller than Enjolras, held still. Combeferre beamed, turning to Enjolras. “See?”

Normally a deist, Combeferre was on occasion tempted to believe that the great Watchmaker did in fact intervene in His creation, purely for His own sadistic amusement. This was such an occasion. The pile toppled over.

Enjolras moved away fast enough to avoid getting hit, but could not avoid the splashes of alcohol and other chemicals from the falling bottles. As he swayed backwards his hair, grown over-long from neglect and now covered with the contents of the bottles, swung in a shining curtain near the glow of the candle. Its ends caught fire.

“Aaaahhh!” The yelp came from Combeferre, not Enjolras, who was stoically attempting to smother his own hair with the coat he’d left on the back of a chair. Quickly Combeferre seized the nearby pitcher of water and overturned it on Enjolras’s head.

The small flames died out and the awful smell of burned hair filled the room. Enjolras, now drenched, glistened in the candlelight, with a wet sheen on his cheeks and rosy droplets in his eyelashes. The apartment suddenly seemed unfit for him: too grimy, too gray.

“Are you unhurt?” Combeferre stepped close to him, peering to make sure no skin had been scorched. Enjolras nodded, and Combeferre exhaled. “Forgive me, I should never have been so foolish—”

“It is nothing,” Enjolras said, touching Combeferre’s arm, and giving him the direct, earnest look that always speared him to the heart. This was the danger of Enjolras, this feeling that was more delicate and yet hotter than other affections, as powerful and insubstantial as a gale.

“You could have suffered serious burns.”

“No—you were too speedy with the water for that,” Enjolras said, with a glimmer of a smile. “Don’t distress yourself. This is a small sacrifice to make for progress.”

“Progress?”

“We improve and reorganize your apartment as we seek to do for our country.” Enjolras’s tone suggested that he considered the tasks to be of equal magnitude. 

“Let me get you something to dry off with,” said Combeferre.

“Later,” said Enjolras. “Your things have fallen, and we must put them back. Let’s begin again, shall we?”


End file.
